Hi Dave, I havn’t looked at the Graf foroum in a while, are you using the ply as a core or as a skin with triax cloth. If as a core how are you foiling it? I’d be stoked to see some of the boards.
cheers
You will find lots of info on grafsnowboards and skibuilder but briefly:
Ply can be used as core, you stagger the layers of play to achieve thickness, clamping under weights to a rocker table, using a belt sander you can somewhat thin the tips but this procedure gives less foil control than other methods, in the end though, for off-piste boards this didn’t hamper the performance in any way.
When using a vertically laminated solid wood core you can foil with your planer or with a belt sander rather effectively, the triax glass is used in all construction methods as the layer between the base and also as the top layer (with or without topsheet)
I have also made “sandwich” boards with balsa sandwich cores where the balsa is the “foam” core with abachi and multiaxial glass skins. This was high performance, lightweight but fragile and the balsa ended up failing.
Next options are to combine methods and use bamboo veneer to make a core and abachi as a skin with carbon and multiaxial fibers.
All boards except the ply models required the use of either a vacuum table setup or mechanical press.
All boards rode amazingly well, better than production boards, we (destructively!!) tested them earlier this year!!
I’ll try and get some shots up when I clear out my workshop.